


the outsider

by deadlybride



Series: A Perfect Circle [19]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon-Typical Angsting, Episode: s08e10 Torn and Frayed, Established Relationship, Jealousy, Multi, Season/Series 08
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-27
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-24 13:39:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10742805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadlybride/pseuds/deadlybride
Summary: November 7, 2013. Sam kills time in a motel room in Kermit, Texas.





	the outsider

**Author's Note:**

> A Perfect Circle - _The Outsider_ , track seven on _Thirteenth Step_

_What'll it take to get it through to you, precious?_  
_I'm over this—why do you want to throw it away like this?_

 

Dean walked out of the room and then there was the slam of the Impala’s door, the creak and the weight of the steel audible even through the motel wall, and since then it’s been silent. Sam’s worked his way through most of the six pack he brought, watching the late news broadcast slip over into public access and infomercials, cheap sets and bad bright makeup flickering silently on the old television. The beer hasn’t done much to soothe, though at least it’s given him something to do with his hands. He half-wants to—to fight something. Someone. No point in that, though. Fistfights don’t do anything. They just make you bleed.

Amelia hasn’t shown up. He doesn’t know if he expects her to, or not. Their talk in the bar was hardly a talk at all. _It is you_ , she said, pale in the neon lighting, and before he could say much of anything back she was drawing away, shaking her head, _no, no, I’ve got to go, I’ll come—we’ll talk later, okay?_ Talking too fast, not letting him get a word in edgewise. That’s her tell, how he knows when she’s nervous, and the knowing of that isn’t making the bitter pit in his stomach any less awful. This is a terrible, terrible trick Dean played.

He cracks open the last beer, twiddles the bottle cap. The edge bites gently into his fingers and he presses it a little deeper, watches the indents form and fade, his fingertips going white from the pressure and then red as the blood seeps back under the thin barrier of his skin. Dean might grab another motel room, though Sam doubts he’d stay in this same place. Too close, and when Dean’s feeling pissy he makes his point with distance. Maybe he’s over at the motel out on the 18—or maybe he drove out of Kermit entirely, out of Texas and up into New Mexico, putting a state between them. Or maybe he went back east, back to Louisiana—and back to Benny. Sam clenches the bottlecap tight in his fist, the sharp edge biting just for a moment into the fine sensitive line of where his scar’s nearly faded—and then tosses it, an easy arc across the room into the little trashcan. Bullseye.

Dean won’t talk about it. Won’t tell Sam anything about what really went down, what it was really like, though he’s dropped enough grim clues that Sam knows it must have been awful. He also won’t talk about Benny. Kept him a secret, like it was something dirty—and hell, it is. Sam takes a long swallow of beer, eyes trained unseeing on the fuzzy TV. A vampire. Dean’s new best friend, someone that he _trusts_ , who hasn’t _let him down_ , and that weird queasy fury rises right up the back of Sam’s throat just thinking it. He tries not to think about—if they did anything else. If it wasn’t just escaping together, but—ugh, god. The thought’s vile.

At least with Amelia—he was dead. Dean was dead, or at least gone, permanently. Sam’s never thought cruelly about Lisa. He was gone, and they never thought he’d come back, and he’d made Dean promise, anyway. To move on. It was the promise they made each other, and after everything—Sam kept his promise. He lived. That was the bargain.

Dean won’t talk about purgatory, won’t say a thing. Nothing real. Sam told the truth, told him that there had been someone else during their long divided year, and all he’d gotten was anger. Fury, bubbling up out of nowhere. Sam tried to be sympathetic, he tried, but it’s been months, Dean’s easy grin gone and a bitter smile left in its place, like somehow it’s Sam’s fault, what happened. Like it was Sam who had known his brother was alive, and waiting, and had gone and hooked up with someone else anyway. Like it was Sam who trusted someone more, who’d loved someone more, as if that could ever be possible. As if there could ever be anything that matched—

His beer’s gone. It’s just past three in the morning, when he checks his watch, and he shoves off the little narrow loveseat, chucks the empty bottle into the trashcan. The neon in the bar beyond the motel is still flashing through the curtains and he’s tempted, for a minute. Just—go get wasted. Try to wipe it all out. It’s a waste of time, though. No matter how hard you try, whatever bitter weeds you’re trying to drown always just grow deeper roots.

He washes his face in the kitchen sink, the cold water a relief against his too-warm skin. He goes to bed. It’s the same weirdly-soft mattress he remembers from a year ago, the same thin overwashed sheets. He tucks a hand behind his head and watches the blue and red take it in turn to color the dim ceiling. After a while, he closes his eyes. At this point, all he can do is wait for morning.

**Author's Note:**

> [posted here on my tumblr if you'd like to reblog](http://zmediaoutlet.tumblr.com/post/160040751864/the-outsider)


End file.
